There are several joys peculiar to the independent writer. One of them is the responsibility of advertising. A few weeks back, I made the decision to plough more of the earnings from my books into these adverts. One of the places I wanted to advertise is a site call kboards.com, a busy hub full of […]
The term ‘lacuna’ means a couple of things. (Etymologically, it comes from the Latin for ‘lake’.) People use it generally in the sense of ‘gap’. From this we get lacunar amnesia, where the individual completely forgets an episode in their life (though they may retain learning from that period). We get the literary lacuna; in […]
To publish on the Amazon Kindle and retain as much control over the presentation as possible, I use HTML markup. Below you’ll an excerpt of the HTML source for The Amber Rooms. You should be able to build upon this and replace the book text with your own. The code itself has minimal commenting. (Thanks […]
Tread carefully. Contains spoilers. Who are the key characters? In this story, we have two main characters — David Proctor and Saskia Brandt. Which of these is the most engaging? David, who has led a privileged life (albeit affected by tragedy), acquiesces to an escape plan because he has nothing left to lose. Saskia, on […]
Juuuust a brief post to say that Déjà Vu will be free for the next two days. Here’s a link to the UK store; and one to the US store.
I’ve never been one for obfuscation when it comes to the writing process. I don’t want to start now. When I retired from writing and prepared to let my books lay down and die on the Kindle, I was as surprised as anyone when they did well. Since March 2011, I’ve sold almost 20,000 copies, and […]
I’ve been meme-slapped by m’colleague Roger Morris, writer of the Porfiry Petrovich mysteries and other entertainments, including one of my favourite books of a few years back, Taking Comfort. I have to answer ten questions in ten minutes about my current book. It’s very current indeed, as I’m planning to release it on the 21st […]
This morning, I received an email beginning: Well, it’s 2.00 in the morning and I’ve just finished your book. The email made me laugh out loud, and I reflected that it’s considerably easier to write these days in the knowledge that people might want to read the final product. This correspondent raised an issue. Am I […]
I’m coming late to the brouhaha that surrounds customer reviews. The social web, it seems, is crawling with examples of sharp practice, where reviews are not written in good faith. If you want more background on the present storm, read this article from the New York Times about reviewers-for-hire and this from Forbes about the […]
Following some requests, I’ve now put together questions (and answers) about Déjà Vu for reading groups. You’ll find them under a new menu item above, called Resources.